While I seldom have a problem painting walls the thought of making over my chandelier was scary. Possibly because I knew if I screwed it up I would have to dig in my pockets to buy another one. Let's face it, if you don't like the color you paint your wall you simply paint over it, but with a chandelier, well you gotta kinda live with it or buy another one.

I surfed the web trying to decide on what I wanted. My dining room is small - just large enough for the table - so I knew it had to be something simple, but with some elegance and possibly some bling.

First I figured I should clean these - who knew they could get so dirty?

Big, big difference

And then after surfing the web I saw this...I knew right away this was what I wanted!

Isn't it a beauty? I don't do welding so mine looks nothing like this...but I knew I wanted bling.

Then I took another big look at my chandelier and I remembered my little mini chandelier I had concocted some years ago in my bathroom

Okay, you can stop laughing but this is what you do when you're decorating with cents. (smile) I've long since took this down, but I still have the trim that came off of it, see...

So, this is where I am. I think I made major progress, I'll sleep on it and probably overeat as usual and then come up with something by the weekend. If you want to read more about Imagine the Impossibilities Challenge you can read about it here. LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Most of my rooms had borders put up some years ago, so although the rooms were in need of an upgrade just the thought of taking all of those borders down tired me. Thankfully, when my son was home he relieved me of that duty.... Not only did he take down the borders he also caulked, primed and painted the moldings for me. Ummm, perhaps next year I can coax him into putting up some crown molding. This was a lot of work and I don't need to say how happy I was that he took on the chore, it's amazing how much brighter the rooms look.

Bathroom w/borders

Bathroom w/o

Now ready for an upgrade

Living Room w/borders (I know, maybe I should have waited to paint my brick wall)

WORK IN PROGRESS

It's amazing how much he can knockout with music blasting in his ear (smile)

Friday, January 20, 2012

After reading about "Imagine the Impossibilities" Challenge I knew had to take the plunge. If you haven't heard about it you can check it out here on Karah's blog. But what really pushed me was the quote she had posted by Doug Larson “Some of the greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible”. You see, there are a lot of things I dare not attempt because I always felt I wasn't smart enough, or talented enough, or qualified enough.

Karah asks the question " What would you try if you had no boundaries? What ideas do you have floating around that you (or others) think are just nuts? What do you really just want to try even though a big part of you thinks it’s just not going to work?"

After some time I thought about my old chandelier. I've been wanting to make it over for years, but there's always that underlying question "What if it don't turn out right?" or "What if nobody likes it?"

This is my chandelier -dust and all!

About 1-1/2 years ago, I was bold enough to paint it, but after that I got stuck and just stopped, yep, gave up...my mind went blank!

So, this is where I am. I'm ready to step up to the challenge, think "outside of the box" and get my creative juices flowing... nah, deep down inside I'm freaking scared of messing up and doing something stupid. (I'm taking a deep breath). Tonight I'll sleep on it, I'm busy over the weekend, but on Monday I'll be ready to take on the Challenge.

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.” Dave Barry